Everyone, we have a new spammer who calls himself Tom. Say hi, Tom! Unlike our usual comment spammers here at GKG, Tom’s comment was completely readable but made absolutely no sense in the context of the (requiem!) post he tried to leave it on: Tom wanted to try some of my Cherry Bounce and asked if he could buy a few jars.

I had a couple of problems with Tom’s request, because 1) I don’t make Cherry Bounce, and 2) I wasn’t entirely sure what Cherry Bounce was other than it being an alcoholic drink of some kind. Was it cherry hard cider? Cherry beer? A cherry party drink with a fluffy foamy top and a sparkly sugar rim?

Research time!

Cherry bounce was reportedly invented in a village called Frithsden in Hertfordshire, England hundreds of years ago, although if you start looking it up you’ll find plenty of people claiming it’s purely American in origin. It was a popular drink in the 18th century and a favorite of George Washington’s, which is probably why some Americans think that. Oh, and it’s also the official cocktail of Raleigh, North Carolina, although they’ll tell you right up front that they know it predates their state.

Anyway, cherry bounce is a very simple concoction to make. In its most basic variation you need cherries, sugar, and some kind of liquor – bourbon, whiskey, rum, vodka, you get the idea. You mix the cherries with the sugar, then mix in the liquor, and then you put a lid on it and set it in a corner for a month or so. The result, strained and bottled, is cherry bounce, and it comes with a side bonus of boozy cherries to eat as-is or make into dessert.

Period recipes for cherry bounce, notably the one Martha Washington made for her famously cherry-loving husband, call for a few more ingredients: cinnamon sticks, whole nutmeg, cloves. Same process, just more things added to the jar before it goes to sit in the corner for a month. It’s said to be nice to drink and even better to give as a gift during the holidays, and the finished product is an absolutely beautiful color.

A kissing cousin to cherry bounce is boozy cherries or drunken cherries, which are basically the same thing only the focus is on eating the cherries rather than drinking the liquor. You can sometimes buy drunken cherries in your grocery store’s liquor aisle, or you can make them yourself even more easily than you can make cherry bounce.

Here’s a super easy method for making drunken cherries that will also let you have different colored and/or holiday-themed cherries:

Or if you’re willing to put in a little more work, here’s a surprisingly fancy Christmas version you can make on the beach in Australia:

I plan to try to make some cherry bounce soon, just to see how it comes out. Sorry, Tom, you can’t have any of mine even then: It’s illegal to sell either the bounce or the cherries without a special license.

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